LITMIR.BIZ

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It was amazing how a shot of Scotch could stabilise his senses.

      He managed to finish the job without creating too much havoc, and dropped the towel on to the cold tiles of the bathroom floor. Then, after another ironic grimace at his appearance, he walked back into the bedroom, wrinkling his nose at the sour smell of alcohol that hit him. Indifferent to the fact that he was naked, and the temperature outside somewhere in the low forties, Matthew unlatched the windows to his balcony and threw them open. Then, after withstanding the blast of cold air that hit him with what he considered was admirable fortitude, he groped for his denims and pulled them on.

      He was rummaging in his closet for a clean polo shirt when there was a knock at the bedroom door. Turning, he surveyed the closed door for fully fifteen seconds without answering, and then, stifling his impatience, he called, ‘Yeah? What do you want?’

      The door opened, just a crack, and a man’s bald head appeared. ‘Oh,’ he said, when he saw Matthew. ‘You’re up, sir. Will you be wanting some breakfast?’

      Matthew’s mouth compressed. ‘At half-past twelve, Jeeves? I don’t think so. I’ll just have a sandwich. I want to get to work.’

      The door widened to admit the intruder, a huge, giant of a man, whose massive shoulders and straining paunch were constrained beneath navy blue worsted and spotless white linen. The uniform of a gentleman’s gentleman sat oddly on such a big man’s shoulders, but Matthew knew better than to suggest an alternative. The other man was proud of his appearance.

      ‘Are you going to the office, sir?’ he enquired, his sharp eyes taking in the open balcony doors and the untidy state of the bedroom. ‘And I wish you wouldn’t call me Jeeves, Mr Putnam. I don’t like it, and you know it.’

      Matthew gave the man a resigned look, and then, having no luck in finding a clean shirt, he reached for the sweatshirt he had discarded the night before. ‘No, I don’t plan to go into the office today,’ he was beginning, when the manservant snatched the sweatshirt out of his hands. ‘For God’s sake, Victor, what the hell do you think you’re doing?’

      ‘Well, judging by your appearance, I’d guess you’d just had a shower, sir,’ declared Victor mildly, ‘and I’m sure you didn’t intend to wear this rather—odorous—item. You have a whole drawer full of clean shirts in the closet behind you. Just tell me what you want, and I’ll get it out for you.’

      ‘I can dress myself, thank you—Creighton,’ drawled Matthew, with rather less patience. ‘Why don’t you get out of here until I’m finished? Go and make some coffee or something. I don’t need a nursemaid.’

      ‘Did I say you did?’ Victor rolled the offending sweatshirt into a ball, and stood his ground. ‘But, as it happens, you look as if you need someone’s assistance. Your mother isn’t going to like this. She’s not going to like it at all.’

      ‘My mother?’ Matthew paused in the act of choosing a shirt from the drawer Victor had indicated, and turned to look at him again. ‘What does my mother have to do with anything?’

      ‘Have you forgotten? You’re meeting her for lunch in a little over half an hour.’

      ‘Oh, God!’ Matthew slammed the drawer with his hip, and pulled a black polo shirt over his head. The sombre colour only accentuated the pallor of his olive skin, and Victor’s tongue clicked his disapproval. But Matthew was indifferent to anyone’s feelings but his own at that moment, and the prospect of eating lunch with his mother and enduring her condemnation of his lifestyle was enough to make him wish he’d stayed in bed.

      ‘A sandwich, you said, sir,’ murmured Victor, evidently deciding it would be politic to give his employer a breathing space, and Matthew cast him a brooding look.

      ‘Nothing to eat,’ he snarled, the jaw he had shaved so inexpertly clenched aggressively. ‘Just fetch me a beer, and no arguments. Oh, and call me a cab. With a bit of luck there won’t be any available.’

      Victor paused in the doorway, his broad features showing his dismay. ‘I can drive you, Mr Putnam,’ he protested, but his employer’s face was adamant.

      ‘I said I’ll take a cab,’ Matthew retorted. ‘Just do it, Victor. And hurry up with that beer!’

      Three-quarters of an hour later, Matthew stepped out of the minicab and bent to shove a five-pound note into the driver’s hand. ‘Thanks,’ he said, without meaning it, waving away the change the man would have given him. Then, with a tight smile at the doorman’s proffered greeting, he vaulted up the steps and through the swing glass doors into the Ritz’s elegant foyer.

      The dining-room was at the far end of the hallway, but guests took pre-luncheon drinks in the gilded splendour of the Palm Court. It was there Matthew knew he would find his mother, delicately sipping the Perrier water which was all she allowed herself in the middle of the day. Caroline Putnam—née Apollonius—guarded her appearance with almost as much reverence as her son disregarded his, and it was her proud boast that her wedding dress fitted her as well today as it had done more than thirty years ago.

      Of course, the fact that the marriage she had worn the wedding dress for had lasted a considerably shorter time she considered of little consequence. She had married Joseph Putnam when she was only eighteen, much against her parents’ wishes, and had soon come to realise her father had been right all along. A penniless Englishman, of good stock but little business acumen, Joseph Putnam had lingered only long enough to sire their only offspring, before taking off on a round-the-world yacht-race that had ended in disaster off the Cape of Good Hope. Of course, Caroline had been suitably grief-stricken when the news was delivered, but no one could deny she had been relieved. It had saved her the publicity—and the expense—of a messy divorce, and Aristotle Apollonius—who preferred the sobriquet of Apollo, for obvious reasons—had been more than willing to take his errant daughter, and her small son, back to Greece.

      But, from Matthew’s point of view, it had not been an entirely satisfactory solution. Despite the fact that ‘Apollo’ had had only one child, Caroline, and that therefore Matthew was the only heir to the enormous shipping fortune he had amassed, the boy grew up with a regrettable dislike of his grandfather’s use of his money. The politics of power didn’t interest Matthew; he saw no merit in controlling people’s lives for purely personal gain. And, because his father had left sufficient funds for him to be educated in England, at the same schools he himself had attended, where a spartan regime went hand in hand with a distinct need for self-preservation, he had acquired a cynical aversion towards wealth in all its forms. It was a constant bone of contention between Matthew and the other members of his family, and the fact that he had made his home in England was no small contribution to the continuing discord.

      Which was why Matthew was not looking forward to this particular lunch with his mother. Ever since the split with Melissa she had been trying, so far unsuccessfully, to persuade him to come back to Athens. Despite the fact that he had now formed his own company, specialising in computer software, and had no interest in taking his place on the board of the Apollonius Shipping Corporation, Caroline persisted in pursuing her goal.

      The trouble was, Matthew was very much afraid that sooner or later she might succeed. He might be able to evade the issue so long as his grandfather was alive, but Apollo was over seventy years old. In ten years, twenty at the most, he was going to die, and then what excuse would he have for avoiding his responsibilities? Whether he liked it or not, hundreds—thousands—of people relied on the Apollonius Shipping Corporation for their livelihoods, and there was no way he could sit back and let his grandfather’s relatives jealously tear to shreds what he had achieved.

      The head waiter recognised him as he climbed the steps into the brightly lit atrium. It might be a dismal early April day outside, but the Palm Court of the London Ritz was as cheerfully brilliant as ever.

      ‘Good morning, Mr Putnam,’ the man said, his eyes moving from Matthew to the elegantly dressed woman at a corner table. ‘Your mother is waiting for you.’

      ‘Yes, thanks.’ Matthew bestowed another brief smile, and started across the room. ‘Oh—bring

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